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Hot new gaming PC perhaps too hot!?

BlindZenDriverBlindZenDriver Registered User regular
edited October 2009 in Games and Technology
I'm in the process of a major upgrade of my gaming PC and while it runs great so far I'm concerned about how hot the CPU gets. Any help deciding if hot is to hot would be very welcome:

The rig:

CPU: iCore7 870 (At stock speed so far - I'm planing to overclock eventually)
CPU cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper TX 3 with a Thermaltake's ISGC 12 (120x25 mm fan) at 1500 rpm.
Motherboard: Gigabyte P55-UD6
Memory: 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 PC-12800 (1600MHz) DDR3, 8-8-8-24 (currently at 1333 Mhz)
GPU: Sapphire 4890 2 GB (At stock speed so far)
Sound: Onboard + also a ST AudioDSP24 which I use for LP digitizing project (takes forever)
Storage: 4 hard drives and 2 optical, all from my old rig. An SSD to be the new system drive is on order.

What makes me wonder is that when gaming or running some sort of CPU stress program the CPU will hit 185 Fahrenheit, or maybe even more than that as I have lot in go on for long like that. The motherboard seems to never go higher than 100F. I have a good deal of air being blown through the case, hard drives never go over 90F, and GPU does not get very hot either.

There is 120 mm fan, a PSU fan and the GPU fan all blowing air out of the case. The CPU cooler is smaller than planed as I had trouble getting one that supported the 1156 socket so there is something to be gained here.

Should I just consider the 185F okay or do I need to upgrade my cooling?

Bones heal, glory is forever.
BlindZenDriver on

Posts

  • urahonkyurahonky Cynical Old Man Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    185F is REALLY bad for your computer. You should be worried when it's over 70C, and yours was at about 85C. What type of thermal paste did you use when you mounted the CPU cooler to the CPU?

    urahonky on
  • EliminationElimination Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    that is insanely got. Mine runs at 40c when idle. Granted i have 7 120mm fans. Sounds like you need a better cpu cooler to me, whatever you have is not working.

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  • Greg USNGreg USN Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Check out Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern subforum. It's more geared to this type of post.

    Greg USN on
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  • elliotw2elliotw2 Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    Yea, I'd look that the heatsink is properly attached, and has enough thermal paste on. Last thing that I had that ran at 185F was a graphic card that quickly broke completely

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  • BlindZenDriverBlindZenDriver Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    urahonky wrote: »
    185F is REALLY bad for your computer. You should be worried when it's over 70C, and yours was at about 85C. What type of thermal paste did you use when you mounted the CPU cooler to the CPU?

    Thank you. Exactly what I feared but I have not been able to locate any numbers saying what Intel think is to high.

    The paste was something no name that came with the cooler. Seemed okay and I did only use a tiny bit so it ought not to be at fault. By now I'm wondering if perhaps the cooler itself is not really up to the task - it comes with socket 775 mountings as well so perhaps it is really a 775 cooler that is made out to be more than it is. I mean it is better than the Intel one, forget to mention I tried that first, but that is not saying much.

    Oh, at idle it gets as low as 33C but it could be partly due to the motherboard doing a neat trick and under-clocking the thing down to 1240 Mhz (or at least I think it is the motherboard maybe it is just a new Intel trick)

    Any suggestion for a better cooler is welcome.

    BlindZenDriver on
    Bones heal, glory is forever.
  • KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    edited October 2009
    elliotw2 wrote: »
    Yea, I'd look that the heatsink is properly attached, and has enough thermal paste on. Last thing that I had that ran at 185F was a graphic card that quickly broke completely

    And make sure there's not too much thermal paste on. That's also a big problem people sometimes have.

    Khavall on
  • psychotixpsychotix __BANNED USERS regular
    edited October 2009
    BlindZenDriver wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    185F is REALLY bad for your computer. You should be worried when it's over 70C, and yours was at about 85C. What type of thermal paste did you use when you mounted the CPU cooler to the CPU?

    Thank you. Exactly what I feared but I have not been able to locate any numbers saying what Intel think is to high.

    The paste was something no name that came with the cooler. Seemed okay and I did only use a tiny bit so it ought not to be at fault. By now I'm wondering if perhaps the cooler itself is not really up to the task - it comes with socket 775 mountings as well so perhaps it is really a 775 cooler that is made out to be more than it is. I mean it is better than the Intel one, forget to mention I tried that first, but that is not saying much.

    Oh, at idle it gets as low as 33C but it could be partly due to the motherboard doing a neat trick and under-clocking the thing down to 1240 Mhz (or at least I think it is the motherboard maybe it is just a new Intel trick)

    Any suggestion for a better cooler is welcome.

    The same coolers that were king of the hill for 775 are also the top for the new chips, that won't change. It seems like your mount is off, or your temps are being read wrong.

    Where are you getting that temp, BIOS, or what program?

    Check your mount as well.

    psychotix on
  • MorvidusMorvidus Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    I have a core i7 950 that had thermal paste pre-applied, but it didn't look satisfactory for the system I built. It had 3 stripes of paste, and I was afraid that when I mounted the fan and they spread, there might be air bubbles. I tried it anyway, and on the first boot, the temp got over 90C. I shut it down, cleaned the crappy paste off, and bought some new stuff. I haven't seen it get over 70C while playing Crysis maxed.

    Air bubbles are extremely dangerous because of all the heat they retain.

    Morvidus on
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  • BlindZenDriverBlindZenDriver Registered User regular
    edited October 2009
    psychotix wrote: »
    The same coolers that were king of the hill for 775 are also the top for the new chips, that won't change. It seems like your mount is off, or your temps are being read wrong.

    Where are you getting that temp, BIOS, or what program?

    Check your mount as well.

    The temp reading comes from EasyTune6 (tool by Gigabyte which made the motherboard) and I also checked with SpeedFan and Core Temp (Which shows the temperature to 7-8 degrees higher).

    When pushing the system the temperature goes up over 2-3 minutes and then continue to climb very slowly and when I close the stress test software the temperature drops a lot within seconds. I guess that could mean there is plenty of cold air passing the cooler but that the cooler is not able to get the heat away from the CPU efficiently enough e.g. that does sound like a lack of connection between CPU and cooler.

    I am pretty sure thermal paste was applied correct (this is not my first build) but I did not consider the mounts. It is front side only with some patent plastic screws so I guess that is a good place to look.

    BlindZenDriver on
    Bones heal, glory is forever.
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